National Chocolate Souffle Day

St. Patrick's Day--19

St. Joseph's Day--21

Easter--33

It is National Chocolate Soufflee Day, sez a few dozen web sites. Chocolate soufflees can be made hot or cold, but the really exciting ones are the former. Since serving hot soufflees involves having a special oven and a special cook to make them, few restaurants offer them. Our own calendar tells us that it's Italian Beef Daube Day. That's a thorough a blend of Creole and Italian cooking as you're likely to find. Daube is a French method of cooking beef (usually tough cuts) that renders it tender to the point that it almost falls apart. In New Orleans Italian cooking, the beef is sliced after being pot-roasted, and then simmered some more in a Sicilian-style tomato ragu. All that's served with spaghetti. It was once widely served around New Orleans, but has become a rarity in restaurants. In homes, it's mostly the older generations that still cook it. I like it because it gives a use for eye of round, a beautiful-looking cut of beef that needs all the tenderizing it can get.

Buster Holmes, whose restaurant on the corner of Burgundy and Orleans was the apotheosis of the New Orleans soul food kitchen, died on this date in 1994.

After a hundred seven years serving German food and beer to Chicagoans in the Loop, the venerable Berghoff restaurant closed today in 2006. This was tantamount to Galatoire's or Antoine's closing here. People at first speculated that the management just wanted to create a groundswell of interest in a reopening, and that they'd oblige, but at prices much higher than the Berghoff's legendary lowball menu numbers. What happened was that a much smaller cafe was opened in part of the gigantic building, with the rest now used for private events and catering. But it doesn't seem like the Berghoff to me, a restaurant that was the essence of Chicago.

This is the day in 1979 when Mr. Ed, the talking horse (not Ed McIntyre, who owns Mr. Ed's restaurant in Bucktown), went to that great pasture in the sky. Horsemeat, while commonly eaten in parts of Europe, has never been so much as tried here. At least not in a restaurant. We eat everything else; why not? I'd sample it if it came my way.

Mario Andretti, the famous former racecar driver, was born on this date in 1940. He started Andretti Winery in Napa.

porcini n. The Italian name for boletus edulis, one of the world's most prized wild mushrooms. It's the same one called cep or cepes in France. Bolete mushrooms, as they are generically known, are exceptionally meaty in texture. They have stout stems, especially at the bottoms. Their tops look like hamburger buns. The undersides, instead bearing gills for spore release, are a light-colored (sometime bright yellow) mass pierced with thousands of pinprick-size pores. Porcini are particularly loved by Italian chefs, who use them for everything from risottos to ravioli to a garnish on meat dishes. They're most often distributed in dried form, but the fresh ones sometimes appear. They're not cheap, but worth their premium.

Pearland is a city of 80,000 people, seventeen miles of downtown Houston. It is very much a suburb of that sprawling metropolis now, but it was founded in 1892 as a distinct town, triggered by the new railroad built from Houston to Galveston. The railroad still runs through there, but the pear orchards that gave the community its name are represented now by pear trees in people's yards. It was devastated in 1900 by the powerful hurricane that destroyed Galveston, but managed to survive. The best restaurant in Pearland is the Central Texas Style Barbecue, right in the middle of town on Main Street.

It's the birth date on 1901 of Linus Pauling, twice a Nobel Prize winner, but better known for his championing of Vitamin C. Pauling believed that colds and perhaps even cancer could be prevented by large doses of Vitamin C. His theory has been proven wrong in scientific testing. However, I choose to believe it anyway, and pop Vitamin C regularly if I feel a cold coming on.

If you feel a cold coming on, eat a whole bunch of parsley. It's loaded with Vitamin C, but in case that doesn't work, at least your sneezes will smell sweet.

Film actor Stanley Baker was born today in 1927. . . College football coach Hayden Fry kicked off his life today in 1927. . . New Jersey Congressman Richard Roe was sworn in to the world today in 1924. . . Physicist Steven Chu was born today in 1948. His most famous work involved trapping moving atoms with lasers, which he called "optical molasses."

"Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good."--Alice May Brock, owner of the Alice's Restaurant of the Arlo Guthrie song. She was born today in 1941."A man should not so much respect what he eats, as with whom he eats."--Michel de Montaigne, French writer, born today in 1553.

"This bottle's the sun of our table,
His beams are rosy wine;
We planets that are not able
Without his help to shine."--Richard Brinsley Sheridan